Erla ironworks
The Erla ironworks emerged from one of the oldest hammer mills in the Upper Ore Mountains , which was first mentioned in 1380 as the "Hammer in der Erl", making the plant the oldest company still in existence in Saxony today.
Geographical location
The ironworks is located in the valley of the Schwarzwasser in the district Erla of the city of Schwarzenberg , directly on the state road 272 and the railway line Schwarzenberg- Johanngeorgenstadt opened in 1883 .
history
The establishment of the hammer mill is closely related to the discovery of the Roteisenstein deposit on Rothenberg , which was the most important iron ore mine in the Kingdom of Saxony until the middle of the 19th century . The Erlaer Hammer was first mentioned in 1380 as the "Hammer in der Erl", making the Erla ironworks the oldest company in Saxony that still exists today.
Members of the aristocratic family von Berkas von der Duba are said to have belonged to the oldest owners. In 1430 Wilhelm von Boskowitz from Bohemia is proven to be the owner of the hammer. In 1434 Apel von Tettau bought it on Schwarzenberg . His descendant Georg Wilhelm von Tettau awarded the hammer in the Erl in 1517 to the hammer smith Oswald Flemigk. Other owners were the hammer gentlemen Gregor Arnoldt (1550), Nikolaus Klinger and his son-in-law Hans Rüdiger on Sachsenfeld (1626).
On August 7, 1650, the widow Rosina Rüdiger sold the over-indebted hammer mill to the Schwarzenberg city judge Friedrich Röhling and her son Hans Rüdiger. Barely rebuilt after the destruction in the Thirty Years' War , a great flood destroyed the hammer mills again in August 1661. In 1806 the mountain commissioner Karl Heinrich Nitzsche from Obermittweida bought the hammer from the Reinhold brothers. He employed hammer smiths, hammer boys and carpenters as well as charcoal burners in two plants. In 1836 the hammer mill came into the possession of Carl Gotthilf Nestler from Wittigsthal and his son-in-law Eduard Wilhelm Breitfeld from Rothenhammer-Unterwiesenthal. The company Nestler & Breitfeld , which also owned the Siegelhof in Pöhla and the Arnoldshammer in Rittersgrün, enlarged their property and also led the hammer mill in Erla to an upswing. Around 1840 the company was expanded to include a sheet metal rolling mill and the latest methods of iron extraction were used. Nestler & Breitfeld had a mechanical engineering company affiliated until 1843, the management of which was taken over by the Englishman John Payne. From 1850 onwards, more buildings were built and worn out systems had to be replaced. Before a major fire in 1870, the Erlaer Hammer consisted of 27 individual buildings, many of which were destroyed by the fire. The most important parts of the ironworks were rebuilt by 1879, and new houses were also built. However, the blast furnaces were no longer in operation, and the pig iron for hardware production was from then on obtained from Westphalia and Silesia. The products from the factories in Erla were now iron and steel castings, machines, household dishes and black plates. The construction of the Johanngeorgenstadt – Schwarzenberg railway line of the Royal Saxon State Railways in 1883 ( Erla stop ) made it possible to improve the delivery of raw materials and the dispatch of products. The manufacturers had now specialized in machines for the paper industry. Nestler & Breitfeld GmbH was at its head . This was later converted into a public limited company, the majority of which was taken over in 1928 by Jørgen Skafte Rasmussen , owner of Zschopauer Motorenwerke ( DKW ). During the Great Depression and a flood in 1931, iron production came to a standstill. At Nestler & Breitfeld , which produced parts for DKW engines, the "DKW Erla" small aircraft designed by Franz Xaver Mehr were to be built from 1933 . For this purpose, on September 16, 1933, the "Eisen- und Flugzeugwerk Erla GmbH" was entered in the commercial register of the Schwarzenberg / Erzgeb district court . registered.
After the end of the Second World War , the factories became public property . The operation VEB iron Erla took over the plant and produced until the 1990s cylinders for automotive engines.
In 1994 the company was taken over by the Schubert & Salzer Group . The company operates as a contract foundry and employs around 250 people. The annual production capacity is approx. 21,000 t . Services for the development, the creation of the melt, the casting and the post-processing of the finished workpieces are offered. Since 2007 the majority of Eisenwerk Erla GmbH has been owned by the Indian group of companies Sanmar. Eisenwerke Erla sold this to the Dynamatic Group in June 2011.
The iron plaque with gold-plated inscription on the prince's fountain near Waschleithe , which was made in 1822 by the then owner Carl Heinrich Nitzsche, comes from the Erla ironworks .
literature
- About Aue, Schwarzenberg and Johanngeorgenstadt (= values of our homeland . Volume 20). 1st edition. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1972.
- Manfred Blechschmidt: 600 years of iron in Erla. From the Erlahammer to the state-owned ironworks . in: Council of the municipality of Erla (ed.): Between Magnetenberg and Schwarzwasser. Eight centuries of Erla and Crandorf . Erla 1989 ( digitized version ; PDF; 484 kB)
- Förderverein Montanregion Erzgebirge eV (Ed.): Study on the determination and definition of the world heritage areas and buffer zones in the Schwarzenberg area as part of the Montanregion Erzgebirge project. Freiberg 2012 ( digitized version ; PDF; 4.9 MB)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Saxony's oldest company. In: Economy in Saxony. June 2016, p. 30.
- ^ Siegfried Sieber: To Aue, Schwarzenberg and Johanngeorgenstadt. Results of the local history inventory. Akademie-Verlag Berlin 1974. S. 134ff: Erla
- ^ Eisenwerk Erla on the homepage of the Sanmargroup ( Memento from December 24th 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Freie Presse , local edition Schwarzenberg of June 30, 2011: New partner strengthens Eisenwerk Erla: traditional foundry in the hands of the Dynamatic Group in the future. Retrieved June 30, 2011
Coordinates: 50 ° 31 '12.8 " N , 12 ° 47' 10.2" E